


Alpha

by 221b_hound



Series: Lady Akela [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Baskerville - Freeform, Gen, Werewolf Mrs Hudson, alpha wolf, but mrs Hudson is BAMF, mycroft is sneaky, protective Mrs Hudson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft has his suspicions about Mrs Hudson since the gruesome death of Jim Moriarty. He has a van on standby when he goes to confirm his theory. </p><p>Mycroft Holmes is about to get a nasty surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alpha

Mrs Hudson is wrapped up warm in her oldest and most comfortable coat. It's a little tatty now but she has both sentimental and practical attachments to it. She's worn it on full moon nights for thirty years now and it's silly but it feels like it brings her luck. It's also steeped in her own scent, so it's useful for leading her back to her starting point, and therefore her clothes and, most essential of all, her hairbrush. She always looks a fright the morning after.

She steps out of the front door in good time, only to find Sherlock's brother on the footpath, hand extended to open the door. She is wary of Mycroft Holmes, though as Sherlock's brother he's practically pack.

"Sherlock's not in I'm afraid," she says.

"I know," he says drily, "I was rather counting on it."

She blinks at him in her best ditzy landlady fashion. "John's out with him," she says.

"I was hoping to have a quick word."

It's an hour to sunset.

"I'm afraid I have to go out, dear."

"It won't take long, mrs Hudson."

She can smell the lies on him. She always can. But she sees the black van parked nearby, and even from here she can scent a chemical wrongness in it. It reminds her of that case with that poor Henry Knight, and the odd scents that clung to Sherlock and John on their return from the moors.

Oh well. If that's how he wants to play it.

"Just a few minutes then" she says, bustling back inside, like the interruption is nothing more than an inconvenience. "Tea, dear?"

She fusses around the kitchen, putting on the kettle, setting out little cakes, even though he says 'no, thank you'. She knows from experience that he says no but he'll drink the tea anyway, and he'll indulge in a cake if Sherlock isn't here to be rude about it.

Mycroft sits at her little table and folds his hands over that umbrella of his. It smells of wood and fabric and steel, and the faintest trace of old blood. He cleans it well, but her senses are much sharper.

She sets out a pot of Darjeeling for him and a smaller pot of herbal tea for herself. "For my hip," she says, "the cold makes it ache. Would you like to try it?"

He wrinkles his nose fastidiously. "No, thank you, mrs Hudson."

"I'll be mother," she says as she pours for him, then herself.

Then she holds her cup daintily and sips, and looks at him with an expression of innocent expectation.

Mycroft adds milk to his tea. Sugar. He stirs with slow deliberation. He selects a cake. He sips. He takes a bite. He sips again.

"I really should be going," she says, a little fretfully. She doesn't smile, although his game amuses her. It certainly doesn't frustrate or intimidate her.

"Have you heard of James Moriarty, mrs Hudson?" He asks coolly.

"Wasn't he that dreadful man who caused Sherlock so much strife a few months ago?"

"Indeed it was, mrs Hudson,"

"He's not causing trouble again, is he?"

"No, he is not."

"Well, that's a relief. Horrible man."

"He is in fact in ashes in a special funerary jar."

"He's dead?" Mrs Hudson sips her tea. It's half an hour to sunset.

"Quite dead. His throat was torn out by some kind of wild animal."

"Oh, how dreadful!"

"Have you heard of a reporter named Kitty Riley?"

"Should I have? Is she one of Sherlock's clients?"

"Ms Riley was an acquaintance of Mr Moriarty's."

"Oh?"

"She recently moved to Cornwall."

"Oh, that's nice. Cornwall's lovely." She pours herself a fresh cup of tea, and another for Mycroft. She picks at a cake as he eats his second. She looks at the kitchen clock. He glances at his watch.

"I'm keeping you," he says with icy urbanity.

"Never mind. I can catch a later train."

"You've never met either Riley or Moriarty? Or a man named Moran?"

"No. Though I think Mr Moriarty came here to see Sherlock." She shivers delicately. "If I'd answered the door I would never have let him in. Just his photograph made my skin crawl." She shudders with realistic horror. "Such nasty eyes."

"You see, mrs Hudson," says Mycroft, "I suspect you did meet Moriarty."

"Oh no, dear, i'd have remembered."

"Don't play games with me, mrs Hudson. You will lose."

Mrs Hudson is most indignant. "Mind your manners, young man!" 

Mycroft rolls his eyes. "Sherlock Holmes is the worst tenant in London, and you worry about _my_ manners?"

"You're all dreadful," she snaps, "but he at least pays his rent."

Mycroft looks at his watch and for the first time his smug confidence wavers.

The sun has set. Some minutes ago in fact.

Mrs Hudson, in her sensible shoes and floral winter-weight dress and tatty coat is still sitting opposite him. Her hair is nicely brushed, her face carefully made up, her manicured nails gleaming with a fresh coat of Mainly Melon Fizz nail polish. She is every bit an elderly woman interrupted on an evening excursion to bingo or the cinema.

It is ten minutes past sunset and Mrs Hudson remains Mrs Hudson.

"I do apologise, Mrs Hudson," he says, genuinely puzzled, "I appear to be in error."

"Never mind, dear," she says, "finish your tea."

He stays, although he clearly is impatient to leave. Perhaps he thinks it politic to make up for his rudeness.

Mrs Hudson thinks it politic to nip this sort of thing in the bud.

"Another cake, dear?" She offers the plate.

"Thank you, no."

She pats his wrist and leaves her fingers on his skin for a moment.

"You should tell the van to leave," she says in a friendly tone.

And he looks up sharply at her just as he feels the equally sharp prick of pain at his wrist where her fingers rested.

He looks down, aghast, at the bead of blood on his skin that grows around the point where her claw presses into the skin.

Her...

...claw.

Her hand is elongated and bony and thick with fur. It's not a dog's foot but it's certainly not human. Her claws are dark underneath the shimmering of Mainly Melon Fizz.

He drags his gaze up to her face, but the rest of her is still Mrs Hudson. 

"What have you done?"

"Taking precautions," she says, and the single claw pushes further into his flesh, making him wince. When he tries to draw away, the other claws press to his skin and he stops.

"John and Sherlock returned from that terrible Baskerville case smelling so oddly of chemicals and werewolves. Well, werewolf _blood_. Even so faint, it's very distinctive. John's blog says they saw a hallucination, but you obviously study more than _gas_ at that place."

"Mrs Hudson..."

"I don't think I'd like it there."

Mycroft swallows and for the first time since she's known him, he looks afraid. He is trying to hold her gaze and can't. His eyes keep darting down to the small, stinging wound in his wrist.

"If you harm Sherlock..." He begins hoarsely, daring again to meet her gaze.

"Oh you silly," she says fondly, as though he's an over imaginative child, "I would never harm Sherlock. Or John. They are pack. Like you are, now."

If anything, Mycroft appears even more alarmed by this notion.

"You should really tell your fellows in the van to go. You won't be needing them."

"The transformation will..." He looks at the kitchen clock. It's well past sunset now and the only thing that's different about her is her clawed hand on his wrist. Even her eyes are still just Mrs Hudson eyes.

He meets those eyes and takes out his phone. Calls. "False alarm," he says in a bored tone that she knows costs him, because she can feel the thrum of his heartbeat racing in panic in his wrist. "The intel was wrong, obviously. I'm in her kitchen. Now - does it sound like I'm trapped in here with a monster?" Another pause. "No, I'll finish having tea with her and get a cab. Of course. Yes."

He hangs up and stares at her, refusing to succumb to a perfectly natural terror. She is so proud of him right now.

"Am I?" He asks, "trapped with a monster?"

"That's not the question you should be asking," she says mildly. Her claw is still in his wrist. Blood has trickled from the wound to the table top.

"How...?" He starts and his throat is dry. Bless him, he stops to gather his courage and his customary icy coolness. "It's after sunset on a full moon. How are you controlling the change?"

"I thought that was what you were waiting for." She smiles and sips her tea. "Menopause helped a lot. And the tea. It helps give me greater control at this time of the month."

Mrs Hudson can see him trying to subtly inhale the aroma. She doesn't know if he's as good as Sherlock with that sort of thing. She tilts the cup towards him. He looks faintly abashed and inhales again.

"Lemongrass. Aniseed. Rosehip," he notes.

"Oh, those are just for flavour."

"And the other is...?"

She puts the cup back on the saucer. "Later. When we've had a little chat."

He winces. "And then I'm supposed to let you go? To run amok and slaughter the people of Great Britain?"

The soft snarl she makes startles him and he jerks away, until the pain of her claw in his wrist stops him. "I'm not an _animal_ Mycroft Holmes! I don't kill people willy nilly. Even my first change, that didn't happen. That was a _sheep_. What do you take me for? I like to go out for a moon run, of course, but I always eat well beforehand. I'm not a _danger._ "

"That is not," says Mycroft as sardonically as he can under the circumstances, "what Moriarty or Moran or Kitty Riley would say." Then he draws the tiniest of sharp breaths and freezes at the look in her suddenly tawny-gold eyes, the sudden hint of far too many _teeth._

" _They threatened my cubs,_ " she snarls.

Then she's just Mrs Hudson again (except for the claws).

"Sherlock helped me get rid of my old alpha," she says, "I couldn't do it on my own. So I look after him when he can't do it himself. As you do. I just pick my times a bit better, and keep it quieter."

She smiles. Mycroft shudders.

"So there'll be no nonsense about sending me to Baskerville," Mrs Hudson concludes, "Or I'll have to tell them about you and your new condition."

And finally, she withdraws her paw, now just a hand again.

Mycroft inspects the wound. Another bead of blood wells from it, but it's hardly more than a superficial puncture. It's healing up already, which is quite creepy - watching skin knit up before one's eyes. That is not how human skin works.

"What have you done to me?" He asks again, though it's clear he thinks he knows the answer.

"You're not a werewolf," Mrs Hudson says kindly, "You need a bite for that. It's all in the saliva. Filthy stuff."

The tight lines about Mycroft's eyes relax in relief, though his expression doesn't otherwise change. "What am I, then?"

"You're pack, dear."

He scowls at her then and she gives him a Mrs Hudson smile that's almost impish.

"It's only a little wolf in you, not enough for the change to take you. You'll find your hearing and sense of smell get better, and at the moon each month you might prefer your meat more rare. You might need to shave a few times a day then, too."

"That is not all."

"No," she agrees, "as I said, you're pack now. I'm your alpha."

He raises an eyebrow and looks both offended and sceptical. Mrs Hudson doesn't mind. She knows who has the power here, and if Mycroft tries her, he'll learn that quickly enough. Wolf power isn't the same as human power, and she has no interest in his human hunting grounds, with all that awful politics. The wolf's idea of territory and leadership is quite different.

"You won't send me away," she says again, "and I won't tell them about you, and things won't change. I certainly don't intend to bite you, dear. I have no need, do I? I don't cause any harm, except to those who'd hurt my pack. And you won't hurt them either."

Mycroft's hands are folded over the handle of his umbrella. He nods once then rises to his feet, steps away from the table. He thinks he's fast, but he's not. Not compared to the werewolf, who's had a lot of time to learn about her body and her skills. He draws the hidden blade from its sheath, or starts to, but it is no more than half way out, steel glimmering in the electric light, when she is on him.

Mrs Hudson is quite subsumed in the wolf body, with its snout curled in a snarl, teeth sharp and there are so many of them and claws are on his chest. The wolf wears mrs Hudson's dress and coat and she should look comical. But she is utterly terrifying.

Mycroft is on the floor, the umbrella-sword dropped, and his head is thrown back as he bares his throat to her in submission. His arms are splayed, his legs akimbo, he is not putting up the slightest fight as the wolf stands over him, snarling, hackles bristling. Her tawny-gold eyes are intelligent, and angry.

There is only one alpha here, and Mycroft Holmes isn't it.

"I do apologise. Mrs Hudson." Mycroft manages to say.

And as suddenly as the wolf appeared, it's gone, and Mrs Hudson is fussing with her dress and her coat, tidying her appearance again.

"There's a good boy," she says, "but don't do it again." She nods and he blinks, not realising he'd been waiting for her permission to rise. He spends some time rearranging himself, too, covering his discomfort with fastidious grooming.

"You must be hungry'" she says now, and he realises that he is.

Mrs Hudson opens her fridge and takes out a large, raw steak.

"I had this one left. I was going to cook it for my tea tomorrow but you need it now, I think. Sit down."

Mycroft sits and Mrs Hudson puts the meat on a plate and gives it to him, raw and bloody. She gives him a steak knife and a fork as well. "No need to be uncivilised," she says,"and it's a good cut. I get good quality meat for this. I never go moon running hungry."

She sees him make up his mind. She sees when Mycroft Holmes switches from despair to resignation to an acceptance fuelled by curiosity. It's just before he picks up the cutlery and begins to eat, exemplary in his table manners.

While he eats, Mrs Hudson fixes her hair and makes sure her coat and clothes aren't too badly damaged.

Mycroft finishes the meat. He rises to take the plate to the sink and rinse it. Mrs Hudson pats his hand.

"I'm still Mrs Hudson, dear. I've always been this, since you've known me. I'm not dangerous. Well," she amends, "unless someone threatens my pack, and then I can't make guarantees. But I didn't kill Kitty Riley, and Sherlock and John fight most of their own battles. As they should. But I'm entitled to protect myself, so that's what I've done. You'll hardly notice the change in you. You might even find it useful. But if you try to send me to Baskerville, you'll suffer with me."

Mycroft sighs and nods. "I suppose it serves me right."

"It does, rather."

"My apologies, Mrs Hudson. Your secret will, of course, remain safe."

"As will yours."

"If, however, I perceive you have become a risk to Sherlock or the public at large, I'll have no choice but to turn us both in."

"I wouldn't expect less of you, Mycroft." She pats his hand again and leans closer. "Wolfsbane and nettles. In the tea, if you find you need it to settle."

Mycroft stoops to kiss her cheek. "Thank you, Mrs Hudson. Perhaps I may call again to discuss my new condition further."

"Not on Thursdays, that's my book club night. And Monday is bingo. And I have a date with Mr Chaterjee on Friday. But it would be lovely to chat some more. I don't doubt you'll find aspects of the situation very helpful in your work."

"Just what I was thinking."

"I'll be off then," she says cheerfully, "for my little run."

Mycroft walks with her to the front door and she can scent the excitement in him now. The fear has gone and he is full of curiosity about the new trace of wolf in his blood. The display in the kitchen - and of course every new pack member tries the leader once, just to ensure the dynamic is established, she's not at all cross about it - has helped him accept his place in her pack.

Does he realise, she wonders, if he knows that this means he, too, is under her protection? She is careful. She rarely kills. She rarely lets the wolf run with people at all. But she will do whatever is necessary to protect her cubs, and Mycroft is one of them now. It's not likely he'll need her in that capacity, but then, she once thought that of Sherlock too.

Mycroft allows her to take the first cab that passes and gives the driver a handful of cash to take her wherever she needs to go. "Enjoy your run," he murmurs.

She smiles brightly at him. "I will, dear. And don't you worry. I'll look after everyone here."

"I have no doubt of it." He steps back and the cab takes her away. Looking behind, she sees him flag a cab of his own.

Mrs Hudson enjoys her moon run in the park very much. It's good to stretch, to let the wolf out a little, to smell the earth and taste the air and to feel the crunch and the warm blood of the squirrel she catches and eats. (The steak was excellent, but a fresh kill is a meal for her senses, not her stomach.)

In the morning, she locates her coat by the scent, and dresses in her clothes and the coat. She brushes her hair and fixes her make-up, and she catches the tube home.

Sherlock and John get home later in the morning, keyed up with their latest victory, and she thinks they nearly kiss on the stairs this time. She curses the damned doorbell that rang at such an in opportune time. The huge bouquet of flowers that came were sweet though.

Sherlock deduced they were from Mr Chaterjee, but he wasn't really trying. He was cross about the interruption, and how John had run off up the stairs like a jackrabbit.

Mrs Hudson smiles at the card, though.

_Mrs Hudson, with thanks for your gift - MH_

He's a good boy, really, she thinks, and goes to bake a cake for her silly cubs upstairs.


End file.
